7 ms·

Giant Pyrosome

147 points by integrale 5y ago

ziggus 5y ago
"The Giant Pyrosome is a free-floating, colonial tunicate that is made of thousands of identical clones, together forming a hollow cylindrical structure that can be 60 feet (18 m) long and wide enough for a person to enter." Nope.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. It's particularly important not to do that when the thread is fresh, because threads are so responsive to initial conditions.
arwineap 5y ago
Once a year we get hundreds of thousands of pyrosomes in our waters. The first time we saw them I spent the whole trip out of the water researching what they might be FWIW they ended up seeming harmless, my "neighbors" were swimming with them
- abc_lisper 5y ago
  Where is this?
  - klyrs 5y ago
    I found this, looking for more pictures of the critters: https://www.insider.com/pyrosome-sea-creature-bloom-worries-scientists-in-pacific-northwest-2017-6 https://www.insider.com/pyrosome-sea-creature-bloom-worries-... apparently, there was a 'bloom' of them in the pacific northwest in 2017
  - arwineap 5y ago
    Avalon harbor, catalina island, southern california
    - drBonkers 5y ago
      How's your internet for work out there? I considered coming out to work from the island during the pandemic, but wasn't sure about the aforementioned.
renewiltord 5y ago
Some more photos here: https://archive.is/dQQ70 https://archive.is/dQQ70 Original: http://www.divebums.com/FishID/Pages/pyrosoma_big.html http://www.divebums.com/FishID/Pages/pyrosoma_big.html
- amelius 5y ago
  Are there any photos of it taken on land / on the beach?
scrumbledober 5y ago
The article mentions that unless all of the individual organisms die at the same time it is theoretically possible for the colony to live forever. I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be?
- 9dev 5y ago
  Radiocarbon dating of samples, maybe?
  - 323 5y ago
    Radiocarbon dating only works for dead stuff: > When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14C it contains begins to decrease as the 14C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died.
    - 9dev 5y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.
- AitchEmArsey 5y ago
- ajuc 5y ago
  > I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be? Maybe sequencing DNA from a lot of the individual organisms and counting how many differences there are? Older colonies should accumulate the differences, right?
  - andrewflnr 5y ago
    Differences relative to what? A young and old colony are still the same evolutionary distance from their last common ancestor. Even if there was some change in mutation rate once a colony is formed, it would be really hard to measure the difference. Maybe diversity within a colony is a clue?
323 5y ago
What's stopping a bank of fish, or a whale from eating the whole thing?
- zarq 5y ago
  Likely the appearance of the colony being a single, gigantic, thing.
- tasha0663 5y ago
  https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollo... This article has a picture of a sea turtle taking a nice chomp out of a smaller one. Maybe nothing that eats them ever feels like eating the whole the colony. It would seem it's pretty tough to tear it.
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    Is a Dermochelys, very big and specialized turtles with powerful jaws.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Chordates are known for their chemistry weapons. The bioluminiscence warning must be there for some reason.
throwhauser 5y ago
It freaks me out that tunicates are chordates. How can a creature's body plan get that bizarre, from a starting point similar to vertebrates? They're not just dissimilar to familiar animals, they're barely recognizable as animals.
- eumoria 5y ago
  Freaks me out this article says over and over [...] large enough for a person to enter. I'm not going in there. That's scary.
- contingo 5y ago
  Tunicates evolved long before animals that you would recognize as typical vertebrates. In their free-swimming larval state, tunicates do have a "notochord", or nerve chord, running along their head-tail axis. This structure is a kind of proto-spine. The evolution of true vertebrates proceeded from this condition by neoteny, the retention of larval traits in the adult body plan. Pyrosomes look so bizarre compared to a layman's notion of what a chordate should look like because they are colonial aggregations of lots of individual adult tunicates that have resorbed their notochords (I'm pretty sure that's the case, despite what the photo description says).
  - throwhauser 5y ago
    > The evolution of true vertebrates proceeded from this condition by neoteny Thanks for the explanation! Slightly less freaked out now.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  The origin of vertebrates is still a great mystery, although much has been learned. https://www.amazon.com/Across-Bridge-Understanding-Origin-Vertebrates-ebook-dp-B07DS4HF1W/dp/B07DS4HF1W/ https://www.amazon.com/Across-Bridge-Understanding-Origin-Ve...
wiradikusuma 5y ago
"long and wide enough for a person to enter" -- has anyone seen it and thought, "Hmm, let me go inside, what could go wrong. I don't see fangs."
- tasha0663 5y ago
  Just looking at the picture that had that caption: NOPE
- castis 5y ago
  This thing looks far too much like a digestive tract for me to ever consider going inside it willingly. I suppose after direct observation for a while I might be more comfortable with the creature but I feel like I'd never get past that initial feeling...
- overspeed 5y ago
  We could send a small remote controlled submersible vessel through it. Get some lights in there and see it from the inside out.
- phaedrus 5y ago
  It reminds me of a particularly fantastic piece of lore from Skyrim. It's remarkable to come across in real life something similar to what stretched my suspension of disbelief in a fictional setting. "The Underground Express was a method of transportation employed by the native Argonians in Black Marsh. It involved travelers submerging themselves into a Rootworm's stomach through their breathing holes. The travelers could then leave the Underground Express via the breathing holes as well. The travelers would then travel inside a Rootworm's stomach during their migrations. Notable exits and entrances to the Underground Express during the winter could be found at Gideon and Hixinoag." - The Argonian Account, Book III https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Underground_Express https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Underground_Express
tasha0663 5y ago
wiz21c 5y ago
With moving pictures it's better, just found that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qis_rfb7fnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qis_rfb7fnU
- amelius 5y ago
  How do these pyrosomes break fishing nets, without muscles or teeth?
latchkey 5y ago
Instantly made me think of the Water Tentacle in The Abyss... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7Vyhy0iXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7Vyhy0iXs
ramesh31 5y ago
Sea squirts are some of the weirdest things in the ocean. Another video: https://youtu.be/5EQGA_4BZ5s?t=9 https://youtu.be/5EQGA_4BZ5s?t=9
Evan_Hellmuth 5y ago
“Could theoretically live forever” implies perfect DNA cloning right? Seems worth studying for anti-cancer or anti-aging purposes.
- arwineap 5y ago
  I think that's because it's many organisms coming together to create the one pyrosome
- ijidak 5y ago
  That is definitely an interesting application for cancer. As far as aging though, I would take it with a grain of salt. Strangely, aging doesn't seem to be caused by accumulated DNA copying errors. Otherwise, each generation of humans would be genetically worse off than the previous generation. The quote below came to mind. "Imagine how many times DNA has been reproduced, not just during your lifetime in your own body but since human life began! To understand how amazing this is, consider what would happen if you used a photocopier to copy a document and then used the new copy to make the next copy. If you did this repeatedly, the quality of the copies would deteriorate and eventually become unreadable. Happily, the quality of our DNA does not deteriorate or wear out when our cells repeatedly divide. Why? Because our cells have many ways of repairing DNA copy errors. If that were not true, mankind would long ago have become a pile of dust" - Source: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g200605/Why-Do-We-Grow-Old/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g200605/Why-Do-We-Gr...

147 points by integrale 5y ago

"The Giant Pyrosome is a free-floating, colonial tunicate that is made of thousands of identical clones, together forming a hollow cylindrical structure that can be 60 feet (18 m) long and wide enough for a person to enter." Nope.

dang 5y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here. It's particularly important not to do that when the thread is fresh, because threads are so responsive to initial conditions.

arwineap 5y ago

Once a year we get hundreds of thousands of pyrosomes in our waters. The first time we saw them I spent the whole trip out of the water researching what they might be FWIW they ended up seeming harmless, my "neighbors" were swimming with them

abc_lisper 5y ago
Where is this?
- klyrs 5y ago
  I found this, looking for more pictures of the critters: https://www.insider.com/pyrosome-sea-creature-bloom-worries-scientists-in-pacific-northwest-2017-6 https://www.insider.com/pyrosome-sea-creature-bloom-worries-... apparently, there was a 'bloom' of them in the pacific northwest in 2017
- arwineap 5y ago
  Avalon harbor, catalina island, southern california
  - drBonkers 5y ago
    How's your internet for work out there? I considered coming out to work from the island during the pandemic, but wasn't sure about the aforementioned.

renewiltord 5y ago

Some more photos here: https://archive.is/dQQ70 https://archive.is/dQQ70 Original: http://www.divebums.com/FishID/Pages/pyrosoma_big.html http://www.divebums.com/FishID/Pages/pyrosoma_big.html

amelius 5y ago
Are there any photos of it taken on land / on the beach?

scrumbledober 5y ago

The article mentions that unless all of the individual organisms die at the same time it is theoretically possible for the colony to live forever. I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be?

9dev 5y ago
Radiocarbon dating of samples, maybe?
- 323 5y ago
  Radiocarbon dating only works for dead stuff: > When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14C it contains begins to decrease as the 14C undergoes radioactive decay. Measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died.
  - 9dev 5y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. Thank you.
AitchEmArsey 5y ago
ajuc 5y ago
> I wonder if we have any way of telling how old a particular colony could possibly be? Maybe sequencing DNA from a lot of the individual organisms and counting how many differences there are? Older colonies should accumulate the differences, right?
- andrewflnr 5y ago
  Differences relative to what? A young and old colony are still the same evolutionary distance from their last common ancestor. Even if there was some change in mutation rate once a colony is formed, it would be really hard to measure the difference. Maybe diversity within a colony is a clue?

323 5y ago

What's stopping a bank of fish, or a whale from eating the whole thing?

zarq 5y ago
Likely the appearance of the colony being a single, gigantic, thing.
tasha0663 5y ago
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollow-marine-monsters-as-big-as-whales/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27213-zoologger-hollo... This article has a picture of a sea turtle taking a nice chomp out of a smaller one. Maybe nothing that eats them ever feels like eating the whole the colony. It would seem it's pretty tough to tear it.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Is a Dermochelys, very big and specialized turtles with powerful jaws.
pvaldes 5y ago
Chordates are known for their chemistry weapons. The bioluminiscence warning must be there for some reason.

throwhauser 5y ago

It freaks me out that tunicates are chordates. How can a creature's body plan get that bizarre, from a starting point similar to vertebrates? They're not just dissimilar to familiar animals, they're barely recognizable as animals.

eumoria 5y ago
Freaks me out this article says over and over [...] large enough for a person to enter. I'm not going in there. That's scary.
contingo 5y ago
Tunicates evolved long before animals that you would recognize as typical vertebrates. In their free-swimming larval state, tunicates do have a "notochord", or nerve chord, running along their head-tail axis. This structure is a kind of proto-spine. The evolution of true vertebrates proceeded from this condition by neoteny, the retention of larval traits in the adult body plan. Pyrosomes look so bizarre compared to a layman's notion of what a chordate should look like because they are colonial aggregations of lots of individual adult tunicates that have resorbed their notochords (I'm pretty sure that's the case, despite what the photo description says).
- throwhauser 5y ago
  > The evolution of true vertebrates proceeded from this condition by neoteny Thanks for the explanation! Slightly less freaked out now.
pfdietz 5y ago
The origin of vertebrates is still a great mystery, although much has been learned. https://www.amazon.com/Across-Bridge-Understanding-Origin-Vertebrates-ebook-dp-B07DS4HF1W/dp/B07DS4HF1W/ https://www.amazon.com/Across-Bridge-Understanding-Origin-Ve...

wiradikusuma 5y ago

"long and wide enough for a person to enter" -- has anyone seen it and thought, "Hmm, let me go inside, what could go wrong. I don't see fangs."

tasha0663 5y ago
Just looking at the picture that had that caption: NOPE
castis 5y ago
This thing looks far too much like a digestive tract for me to ever consider going inside it willingly. I suppose after direct observation for a while I might be more comfortable with the creature but I feel like I'd never get past that initial feeling...
overspeed 5y ago
We could send a small remote controlled submersible vessel through it. Get some lights in there and see it from the inside out.
phaedrus 5y ago
It reminds me of a particularly fantastic piece of lore from Skyrim. It's remarkable to come across in real life something similar to what stretched my suspension of disbelief in a fictional setting. "The Underground Express was a method of transportation employed by the native Argonians in Black Marsh. It involved travelers submerging themselves into a Rootworm's stomach through their breathing holes. The travelers could then leave the Underground Express via the breathing holes as well. The travelers would then travel inside a Rootworm's stomach during their migrations. Notable exits and entrances to the Underground Express during the winter could be found at Gideon and Hixinoag." - The Argonian Account, Book III https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Underground_Express https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Underground_Express

tasha0663 5y ago

wiz21c 5y ago

With moving pictures it's better, just found that : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qis_rfb7fnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qis_rfb7fnU

amelius 5y ago
How do these pyrosomes break fishing nets, without muscles or teeth?

latchkey 5y ago

Instantly made me think of the Water Tentacle in The Abyss... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7Vyhy0iXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO7Vyhy0iXs

ramesh31 5y ago

Sea squirts are some of the weirdest things in the ocean. Another video: https://youtu.be/5EQGA_4BZ5s?t=9 https://youtu.be/5EQGA_4BZ5s?t=9

Evan_Hellmuth 5y ago

“Could theoretically live forever” implies perfect DNA cloning right? Seems worth studying for anti-cancer or anti-aging purposes.

arwineap 5y ago
I think that's because it's many organisms coming together to create the one pyrosome
ijidak 5y ago
That is definitely an interesting application for cancer. As far as aging though, I would take it with a grain of salt. Strangely, aging doesn't seem to be caused by accumulated DNA copying errors. Otherwise, each generation of humans would be genetically worse off than the previous generation. The quote below came to mind. "Imagine how many times DNA has been reproduced, not just during your lifetime in your own body but since human life began! To understand how amazing this is, consider what would happen if you used a photocopier to copy a document and then used the new copy to make the next copy. If you did this repeatedly, the quality of the copies would deteriorate and eventually become unreadable. Happily, the quality of our DNA does not deteriorate or wear out when our cells repeatedly divide. Why? Because our cells have many ways of repairing DNA copy errors. If that were not true, mankind would long ago have become a pile of dust" - Source: https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g200605/Why-Do-We-Grow-Old/ https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/g200605/Why-Do-We-Gr...